


too shy, too scared, too busy, too stupid, never too late

by beezyland



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Disney References, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Inappropriately Timed Horniness Probably, Missing Scenes, Pining, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sex, Spans All Their Movies, The Author Wrote The Thing And Would Like Her Soul Back Now Thanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 11:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18699097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beezyland/pseuds/beezyland
Summary: All those times Steve settled for their secret language and silent communication, he should have used his words. Pep talks to rally the troops come easy, but in those stolen moments with Natasha, he never told her in words how much he loved her. He should have.Stolen moments between Steve and Natasha throughout their partnership and beyond Endgame with some grieving in between.





	too shy, too scared, too busy, too stupid, never too late

**Author's Note:**

> If you're familiar with my other Romanogers work you probably know I've always been a strictly au girl. I successfully avoided dabbling in canon for so long and then Endgame just had to go and break my streak (rip my heart out right there in the theater)! So here it is! Hopefully this reads as a Romanogers love letter to this fandom and all the cool people I met through my obsession, and pure illogical indulgence probably. I don't give a fuck. Enjoy! 
> 
> Contains spoilers.

When Steve finds himself stuck in the hospital after taking down Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. along with it, Sam introduces him to Marvin Gaye and Natasha brings Disney movies.

(Just not _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_ , which he’s already seen. Steve remembers inviting Natasha to watch it when they first became partners, the artist in him eager to track how animation has developed from his time on. He remembers her laughing, but not unkindly, more amused. She had declined with, “Call me when you get to Hercules.”)

Natasha educates him on the Disney Vault as Sam figures out how to connect the DVD player to the TV. They start with _Toy Story_ and Sam taps out before _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. It’s long past visiting hours by the time they get into _Hercules_ , but if there’s a problem with her still being there, none of the nurses on duty mention it.

She’s folded into the chair Sam once occupied, a knee pulled into her chest with her other foot propped up on the edge of his bed. _Is that a thing with her?_ Steve wonders, thinking of that stolen car on their drive into New Jersey.

“Steve, you missed the cloud pillar regeneration animation,” Natasha points out. Somehow she knows he’s paying more attention to her than the movie without taking her eyes off the screen. He really shouldn’t be this surprised.

“Just wondering if you’re comfortable,” he says.

“Always.”

The exchange brings him back to Fury’s office before everything, frankly, went to shit. Well, just after if you count the Lemurian Star, which he does, but at the same time… His partnership and relationship with Natasha has changed so much since. It feels like years have passed when it’s only been a few days.

“I don’t mind sharing.” Steve shifts to the far side of his hospital bed and suppresses a wince when his sore body protests. He’ll probably be good to check out in a few hours, but they had insisted on keeping him for at least forty-eight. He manages to make some room that Natasha merely lifts an eyebrow at.

“Why, Steve, are you trying to get me in bed?” Her voice dips salaciously and then comes the vicious smirk. That should stop surprising him too.

He huffs an indignant sound. “It’s a limited time offer. Take it or leave it.”

It surprises him when she slinks out of that uncomfortable-looking chair and doesn’t make a sound even as she pads closer and slips her boots off. She climbs into bed beside him and Steve tries to move just a little more to keep a respectable distance between them. He wants her as a friend, they _are_ friends, but he knows she likes her space and respects that.

They watch the movie in comfortable, relaxed silence. He tries to pay attention and he really does enjoy it, the musical numbers especially (if he listens close enough, he can hear Natasha hum along to “I Won’t Say (I’m in Love”), but also can’t stop noticing things about her in his peripheral. He can’t stop his eyes from drifting toward her like there’s some magnetic pull between them.

Near the end of the movie, he steals a glance in her direction and finds Natasha staring right back at him ever so shamelessly.

“Steve.” Natasha says his name very seriously, but her eyes dance with pure amusement and her mouth curves into an almost feral grin. “If it was down to you and you had to dive into a pit of souls to save my life, would you do it?”

Steve chuckles and settles in a little more, minding a little less when their shoulders touch just lightly. “I would now.”

 

…

 

After the small, intimate send-off for Tony at the lake’s edge, Happy runs out and comes back with enough cheeseburgers to feed a small army, which they basically are, all crammed into Pepper’s home, sitting wherever they can find space.

“No shawarma around here?” Steve asks. Bruce gives him a sad smile and a huff of amusement from Thor, but no reaction from Clint. Everyone else who might get the reference is gone.

Being a public figure, there will be a bigger ceremony in the city for Tony “I am Iron Man” Stark, open to the public. Steve overhears Peter Parker say something about Tony trending on Twitter. His public persona will get an appropriate send-off, but this gathering is family only. It’s a quiet affair spent grappling with their loss and indulging in fast food. Tony would probably make a joke just to lighten the room.

_“This is… This is impossible! You—You can’t be alive! You’d have to be a—”_

_“A god?”_

Steve flinches and his eyes fly wildly around the room until he sees little Morgan Stark on the couch with a tablet on her lap and a teddy bear dressed in an Iron Man suit under her arm.

(“I don’t know either,” Pepper said when Maria raised eyebrows at the Iron Man merch Morgan hasn’t let go of since the procession moved back into the house. “She told me it was a gift.”

“That Build-A-Bear trip was a real trip!” Rocket cackled.)

Steve walks around the back of the couch to see what she’s watching even though he already knows. Hercules glows gold, carrying Meg’s transparent soul in his arms, only pausing to punch Hades’ face in. Steve folds his arms atop the back of the couch and crouches down to watch. It almost startles him when Morgan turns to him.

“You like Hercules?” Morgan asks.

“I do,” Steve says. “Do you?”

The little girl nods enthusiastically. “Uh-huh.”

“You know, the first time I watched this was with your Auntie Nat. You remember her, right?”

Steve feels his eyes already start to glaze at the memory and his hands dig into the back of the couch, trying to hold back his strength before he breaks it. He tries to clear his tight throat, but it doesn’t make breathing any easier.

“Uh-huh. She has hair like this.” Morgan starts twisting strands of her hair together like Nat’s braid. “Pretty.”

“She was very beautiful,” Pepper contributes, sliding onto the couch next to her daughter and giving Steve’s arm a squeeze like she thinks he needs it or something. Maybe he does. “One of the most dependable, generous souls I’ve ever met.”

“She watched Disney movies with us too,” Lila says from beside her brother and her mom who has tears in her eye. Clint is right beside them, hasn’t strayed too far from them since reuniting and probably won’t for a long time. He keeps his back to them, eyes out in the distance, but he’s listening. “I made her sit and watch The Little Mermaid with me at least a million times.”

“We’d tease and call her ‘Saint Nat’ for how she’d put up with the kids,” Laura says, threading her finger through Clint’s, “and preserve our sanity.”

Then, the most beautiful thing happens. Everyone sitting around the room starts sharing their favorite things about Natasha.

Wanda thought of Nat as a sister and a mentor, grateful for her capacity for forgiveness.

Sam misses her jokes, how she never passed on the opportunity to roast any of them, especially Steve, and maintains that she secretly loved Redwing.  

Okoye mentions the audacity and respect she saw in the other woman’s eyes when they came face-to-face for the first time, toe-to-toe.

Even Scott mentions her strength, remembering the fight at the airport.

Nick talks about how his initial encounter with Carol (“He had two eyes back then and a cat,” Carol says with a secretive smile.) led to the idea of the Avengers Initiative and how Natasha was only ever meant to facilitate the creation of the team. She was a spy, not a super soldier or an alien. Her work was always meant for the shadows. Fate had a different idea it seems and she emerged from the shadows to rescue a friend, became an Avenger of her own accord. She became the best of them.

(Clint walks out of the lake house at this point, letting the door slam after him, and it goes unsaid that it’s better to let him have some space and time alone.)

In an effort to brighten the mood, Pepper and Happy team up to recount The Ballad of Natalie Rushman and her role in helping to not only save Tony, but save the world. All Natasha wanted her entire adult life was to clear her ledger and make up for the crimes she committed under the Red Room’s tutelage and control. Natasha made sacrifice after sacrifice, determined to be better and she was. She was the best of them.

Steve’s content to listen to all of the stories everyone shares about Natasha, so many voices pitching in, so many lives she impacted. He has so many stories of his own from that very first moment she jumped off his shield to commandeer an alien spacecraft as if it was some mundane everyday task. And she did it without fear. He thinks of her popping her bubble gum over his shoulder and a foot up on the dashboard or her desk and watching her walking down a church aisle toward him…

“Are you okay, mister?” With her tiny hand not clutching her Iron Man bear, Morgan leans up to touch the tears on his cheek. Even after The Snap, Steve didn’t cry. The last time he cried before Nat, was Peggy’s funeral.

“Yeah,” Steve answers. And hears Nat’s voice in his head, calling him a terrible liar. His eyes go back to the tablet, where the credits have started, but the music plays on.

“It’s okay. We can go back.” Morgan turns her tablet more toward him so he can see as she swipes a finger across the screen in a way he’s seen Tony do a million times. The movie jumps back in time, back to Hercules saving Meg from the pit of souls. “This one has a happy ending.”

Steve lays his head on the back of the couch and doesn’t bother trying to brush his tears away. He wills himself to keep from breaking down completely and scaring a child or worrying his friends. There will be time for that later.

 

…

 

“Draw me like—”

“If you’re about to say ‘one of your French girls’, I hate to break it to ya, but the others have already beaten you to the reference.”

Natasha heaves a heavy, dramatic sigh. “Tony. That’s a given. And…?”

“Thor,” Steve replies. “Apparently Doctor Foster’s assistant made him watch it. There might have been a bet? There was definitely Asgardian mead involved.”

“Naturally. And that’s not what I was going to say.”

“No?”

“Draw me like a Disney princess!” Natasha makes her voice all high and it reminds him of the Apple Store, the excitable bride-to-be character she was playing. He wishes his reaction was 100% acting. How dopey he must have sounded. _We’re getting married_. In a quieter, flat voice, she mutters, “Draw me like I’m an actual hero…”

Steve stops sketching and glances at her from over the top of his sketchbook. “You are a hero.”

“Save the pep talk, Cap,” she chides. “Can’t a girl make a self-deprecating joke from time-to-time?”

“I dunno. Self-deprecating jokes. Staring at walls. That’s not really your style.”

“No? And you think you’re such an expert, huh?”

“On most women? God, no.” He shakes his head. “On you?”

Steve lets the question linger and she’s happy to do the same. The next thing he knows she’s on her feet and taking long ballet leaps toward the kitchen. They don’t need to address it. The situation they’re in speaks for itself. After Sokovia, after Ultron, there wasn’t even a question of who would take over leading this new batch of Avengers. It’s the two of them training together and living together, acting as Earth’s first and last line of defense.

Back in Erskine’s lab, Steve had wanted to serve his country, win the war, go home, marry the woman he loved and start a family. That’s what men did. What he has now, fighting this seemingly endless war with this family of heroes, it might not be _that_ dream, but it is as close to stability as he’s had maybe since coming out of the ice and he’ll take it.

“Bon Appétit.” Natasha crosses back over to the couch he’s on, holding a plate in each hand, moving like an experienced waitress through a crowded diner during the lunch rush. It wouldn’t surprise him if she’s posted as a waitress for a mission once or twice. Maybe one of those themed ones with the outfit…

“Wow.” Steve stares at the single peanut butter sandwich on the plate she shoves into his chest. “You know, thanks to the serum—”

“You can eat like five of them in one sitting.” She plops down beside him and draws her legs up beneath her, taking a bite out of her own sandwich cut diagonally. “I’ve become quite the Steve Rogers expert myself. If this Avenging thing doesn’t pan out, I could always be a curator at the Captain America exhibit.”

It’s true this one sandwich is hardly enough to satisfy him, but neither of them cooks. They tried to once, twice, a few times together in the kitchen. It had resulted in a ruined set of expensive pots and pans Tony supplied and Wanda and Vision gladly taking up that responsibility from then on. It’s a Saturday night and no one else seems to be around the compound. At least some of them have to try to figure out how to balance having an actual life and saving the world.

“Done.” Steve brushes his hand over the sketch, chasing away bits of excess eraser.

“You actually drew me like a Disney princess? Steve, I was kidding.” Natasha laughs mid-bite, waving her sandwich like she’s going to throw it at him. “Okay. Show me.”

He hugs his sketchbook to his chest. “Not until you tell me you know you’re a hero.”

Natasha flops against the opposite arm of the couch and somehow makes it look elegant. “There you go again, making things so serious.”

“You do though, right? You know.”

His shoulders sag when he picks up on the signs of her defense mechanisms booting up, ready to shut him out because he’s pressing issues she keeps closely guarded. It’s just like the thing with Bruce. He hasn’t so much as brought it up aside from checking in with her, often receiving a joke or deflection or an “I’m fine” in return. After DC, they might be closer, actual friends, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s his place.

Natasha wraps an arm across her chest and shrugs. “Some days more than others.”

And that feels like the truth, like her being honest or trying to be even if it goes against everything she was raised, trained and programmed to be.

Steve knows he should be proud of her and grateful she’s willing to open up to him, but the words that come out of his mouth: “Is this about the Bruce thing?”

“Bruce thing?” Natasha blinks back at him, playing dumb. “There’s a thing?”

Natasha’s debriefing after Sokovia, how she described Bruce giving way to the Hulk had been by the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook, clinical and emotionally detached. She thought that was the only way, pulling the starting pitcher from a no-hitter to put a pinch-hitter into the lead-off spot. She made a call in the field. It still weighs on her, how she resorted to manipulation as a means to an end, something the Red Room would have applauded. Steve just wishes she could forgive herself as easily as she had forgiven and welcomed Wanda.

“You know,” Steve says, “an old friend once told me, none of us can go back. Sometimes the best we can do is start over.”

“Wow.” Natasha stretches out the word like it’s five syllables long, but the look in her eyes brings him back to Sam’s guest room. “I’ll...take that into consideration. Can I see your masterpiece now? I should warn you, Sam and Rhodey made me watch a video of Bob Ross painting trees the other day so I have high standards.”

Steve hands over the sketchbook and all but devours his sandwich in three bites total. At first, he doesn’t think he should try to watch her reaction. Though he knows her better than even after DC at this point, she still won’t show him what she’s feeling if she doesn’t want to. But then he hears a delighted laugh and has to know why.

“Steve.” She twists the sketchbook around and holds it up to her face for comparison. He drew her eyes big like Disney characters and made sure to get all of her little distinctive features—the arches of her perfectly symmetrical eyebrows, that little beauty mark to the left of her nose and her lips slightly tilted in just the barest hint of a smirk. “These are not my boobs. These boobs are nonexistent.”

The accusation in her voice startles a laugh out of him and he wouldn’t be surprised if his face was dusted pink. “They’re Disney appropriate, Natasha!”

“And what’s with the cartoon bird?”

“It’s Redwing! Every Disney princess has an animal sidekick. It’s a rule. I think we watched enough of them at this point to know.”

The elevator doors slide open and Sam walks out with his jacket thrown over his shoulder, collar popped, a certain exaggerated swagger in his step.

“Aw,” Natasha croons at the sight of him. “You’re real happy for someone home so early. Didn’t know hit it and quit it was your style, Falcon.”

“S’cuse me, Widow, aren’t you the one telling me I need to be more efficient with my moves?” Sam does a little turn, really feeling himself evidentially. “And maybe you two should take my advice and leave the compound sometimes. Weren’t you both in these exact spots when I left?”

“Not exactly,” Natasha says. “Steve has to move around to prevent bed sores. The elderly are at a much higher risk than any other demographic.”

“Ha ha.” Steve takes his empty plate and Natasha’s to the kitchen. “I’m making another sandwich or three. Want one?”

“Are you asking me or the Lady of the House?” Sam asks.

“The Lady of the House is fine,” Natasha calls back.

“Damn right she is!” Sam shoots her a wink before heading toward his room. “You crazy kids don’t stay up too late, braiding your hair and whatever else you two get up to after dark in this big, mostly empty, mostly soundproof compound.”

Steve shakes his head, ready to respond, but Sam’s whistling grows quieter and quieter until he disappears down the hallway to their sleeping quarters.

“Don’t tell him I’m saying this, but he might actually have a point,” Natasha says. And Steve almost knocks a plate onto the floor. What? “I think I’m taking a few days to visit Clint.”

Oh.

“You should,” Steve encourages her. The Barton kids love her. He’s seen that love firsthand. They’re family to her and she’s lucky to have that.

“You should come too,” Natasha suggests. “Cooper chose baseball over archery, pretty much broke Clint’s heart, and his first Little League game is this weekend. I know it isn’t Phillies-Dodgers at Ebbets Field…”

“I’ll rein in my expectations,” Steve replies. “Is it okay with Clint and Laura?”

“Of course it is, _Uncle Steve_.”

Growing up, he figured Bucky would find a nice girl, marry her, and have a few kids (one boy and one girl because the 40s) that might refer to him as their uncle. That thought had all but vanished the day Bucky fell from that train and hasn’t resurfaced since. Recovering and hiding out at Clint’s farm had shaken him to his core, but he’s since adjusted. Now, the thought of Clint’s kids calling him their uncle feels nice.

When Steve returns to the couch, peanut butter and banana sandwich hanging from his mouth and a stack of them on a plate, he finds Natasha still curled up on the couch, cradling his sketchbook in one arm. Her fingertips dance over the thick drawing paper. He wonders what she’s seeing right now.

Without even looking up at him, Natasha says, “You might really be in the wrong business. You’re an artist. This is really good.”

 _You are too_ , he thinks. _You’re a good person_.

If only he could get her to see herself the way he sees her. If only.

 

…

 

“You okay? You’ve been out here for a while...”

Steve knows it’s a stupid question the moment he asks. Clint stares back at him as if to agree, yeah, stupid question, then stares straight through him.

“What do you think?” Clint practically sneers.

Steve shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants, glancing over his shoulder at Pepper and Tony’s place. All of their friends and family are still inside, including Clint’s wife and children.

“Before you start, don’t try to tell me what Nat would want,” Clint slurs. Steve could probably smell the alcohol on him even without super soldier senses. “Fuck, I see it written all over your self-righteous face. Don’t even go there, _Captain America_.” Clint slumps back against a tree. “It should have been me.”

“Clint…”

He only doubles down at the sympathy in Steve’s voice. “It should have been me! I went on a rampage for five years. I didn’t care what I had to do or who I had to kill, whatever piece of shit who survived over my… And what did Nat do? She kept on keeping on, trying to keep what was left of the world safe. She brought me back... When we got there, on that cliff and the fucking Dementor in the Scooby-Doo mask told us what we had to do, the price for the stone... She’s the cleverest person I’ve ever known, figured out the dumbass Chitauri portal…”

Tricked Loki, knew the best way to avoid Rumlow at the mall, knew Steve’s exit strategy at the airport and beat him to it. Natasha was the most capable woman he’s ever had the pleasure of knowing and he knew Peggy Carter. She was the best of them.

“Outsmarted me t'the end,” Clint says. “I should have been the one! I should have died to give my family the chance to live, not her. When I first brought her in, when she worked her ass off to clear her damn ledger, to prove she was worth saving, all I ever wanted her to learn was that she was worth living and I failed her so, yeah, it should have been me…”

 _We don’t trade lives_. His own words flash through his head and cut deep.

“Clint, I know—”

“No, you don’t and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t goddamn try to tell me how to feel!” Clint lashes out. “You weren’t there! You didn’t see her, hanging there!” He thrusts a fist upward, uppercuts the air then stares at his closed fist, loosening his fingers. “I held on as long as I could and she wasn’t… She didn’t reach back...”

“She made a choice most people won’t ever have to in their lives. Sh-She...” Steve’s voice gives out and his eyes burn. “She made the choice so you, all of us, none of us will ever have to.”

Clint laughs and it’s the cruelest sound. “Like she made a choice going after Ultron and I asked if you had eyes on her and what did you do? Nothing. Radio silence! You were her partner! You were supposed to protect her!”

“I know.”

Clint kicks the base of the tree. “I brought her into all of this. I told her there was value in trying to be better, value is laying down your life for a greater good. She believed me and where did it get her? Whatever it takes, right? That’s what she said before she… You know what her last words were to me, Cap? She said, _let me go_.”

“You know what her last words were to me, Clint?” Steve shouts in return. The number of times he’s lost his temper goes against the squeaky clean image the Captain America exhibit projects of him. This is one of them. “ _See you in a minute_. I didn’t even get to say goodbye! We… We called it a damn ‘time heist’ like it was some consequence-free field trip! We didn’t even… I never got the chance to...”

Steve drops to his knees. Compartmentalizing kept him upright throughout the fight against Thanos, but now that the war is over, there’s nothing holding him back from thinking about her and how he’ll never see her lopsided smile again or hear her raspy voice make a Steve is Old joke or feel her tremble under him...

He should have told her. He should have fucking told her.

“Look at us.” Clint sinks down beside him. “Sittin’ in the dirt. Yelling at each other like it’ll change shit. She’d call us pathetic if she saw us right now. Bunch o’ clowns.”

“She’d say, hey fellas, when you’re done, we still have work to do,” Steve says. Technically, she said it to Sam and Rhodey whenever they’d start bickering and pointing fingers during training. “I still have a mission to get the stones back. You have your family to take care of.”

The reminder of his family has Clint blinking, sobering, seeing a little clearer. Maybe getting out all of the angry thoughts that must’ve been swirling in his head helps too. Steve hopes so.

“I know it can’t be undone, but…” Clint’s face crumbles in his effort to suppress a sob. “Bring her body back if you can. And if not...thank her while you’re there for me, will ya? Thank her for all of us.”

Steve nods, but can’t manage any words. Clint slips his sunglasses on and shuts off his emotions completely. Spy instincts die hard if they ever die at all. Clint leaves a hard pat on Steve’s shoulder before going back inside. It’s good he has them. Clint isn’t stupid. He has more than enough reason to never pick up that sword again.

 _What do I have?_ Steve asks himself, watching birds fly overhead in a v formation, knowing that flock would be cut in half if not for Natasha.

 

…

 

“This is everything I could find on the Raft. Specs, blueprints, access codes, information on the guards, their shift changes. It’s all I could get before I had to clear the compound. Another minute and I’d probably have a cell between Sam and Clint.”

Steve knows he should probably thank her, but he can’t stop staring at her hair specifically. It’s about half the length it had been the last time they saw each other in that airport hangar, her arm extended, Widow’s Bite pointed in his direction. Mostly, the color takes him by surprise.

She’s blonde now.

“Why does it sound like you aren’t planning on coming with me?” Steve asks when he finally finds it in him to speak.

“Do you trust me to?” Natasha counters.

That’s fair. Further expressed by the way she’s standing next to his table in this crowded cafe. He chose the location. Hiding in plain sight, just like she taught him. Her hesitation makes sense. She doesn’t know if she’s invited to sit at the same table as him, let alone rejoin his team or what’s left of it. She must take his silence as his answer and hangs her head.

“Take care of them, Steve,” she whispers, turning to leave. “Be careful.”

“This mean we’re even?” Steve calls after her before she gets more than two steps away. “I save your life in the bunker. You save mine in the hangar.”

When she turns back around, Steve removes his aviator sunglasses so he can really see her and she can read his open, honest face if she wants. Without breaking eye contact, he pushes out the empty seat across from him with his foot. Natasha’s keen eyes sift through their surroundings, and when she deems it safe, sits with him.

“You should really lower your voice in public.” Natasha steals a sip from his coffee cup on the table. “Ordering coffee so you aren’t just loitering, looking suspicious? Nice touch.”

“I learned from the best in the business.”

Natasha taps her fingers against the coffee cup and brings her other hand up to her mouth, biting at a fingernail, tells she would never show anyone else. Something’s bothering her. “How do you know I’m not a double agent and this isn’t a trap?”

“Well, it isn’t hard to trust someone when you know who that someone really is,” Steve replies. “To answer my own question, no, we aren’t even. I can’t repay you. Not in this lifetime at least.”

“I knew you weren’t going to stop.” She tries to smile and it’s only a little forced and so rueful. “Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Natasha’s eyes fall to where her hand rests on the table, close to his, but not touching. He can almost see her brain working, running possible scenarios and outcomes, but she doesn’t have all the information, the whole truth. She probably should before they go any further.

“Nat,” he breathes out her nickname. “After we left the hangar…”

“Later,” Natasha says, taking charge like she always does when he falters. “I’m not sure I’ll like what you have to tell me, but I’ll listen all you want later. Right now, we need to focus on getting everyone to safety.”

“Okay.” Steve straightens in his seat, feeling a new sense of purpose and direction. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Thank me when we get our friends back.”

Natasha lays her hand over his and squeezes. That simple touch soothes him in a way he didn’t even realize he needed, makes him feel like all the pieces have finally fallen back into their proper place. Even after burning a bridge with Tony and Bucky going back under, if Natasha’s with him, he feels like he can keep going and do what he needs to do. And that’s when Steve makes a promise to himself to never let her go as easily ever again.

 

…

 

_We have what we have when we have it._

Steve hears her voice every time he thinks of something she once told him, Natasha's Rules to Live By. It’s what he thinks as everyone goes their separate ways once again. There will be meetings in the coming days to decide on the future of the Avengers. The thought of leading those talks without Natasha at his side to be the voice of reason…

Clint just wants to go home with his family. Scott, the same. Thor and the Guardians take off to the sky. T’Challa has a whole country waiting for him and Strange has to get back to his base. Fury and Maria slink off into the shadows once more and Pepper offers rooms for those displaced by the compound being in ruins. She must see something in Steve’s eyes because she hands him a set of keys.

“Nice night for a drive,” Pepper says. “Tony was all aboard with the Little House on the Prairie aesthetic, but you know he could never completely abandon his toys.”

Steve thanks her and zips down dark, rural roads with no plan and only the Harley’s headlight and the full moon to guide him. It doesn’t surprise him, probably wouldn’t surprise anyone that he ends up back at what used to be the Avengers Compound. After all, he once called it home.

As he walks around the ruined structure, Steve thinks of Camp Lehigh, clawing his way through dirt and broken concrete, careful to keep his shield over Natasha. And he thought that had been up there with worst days ever. He thinks about that conversation (shouting match) he had with Clint, how the grief spoke through him, but truths leaked out as well.

_Truth is a matter of circumstances._

He was her partner. He had thought she’d been just another way for Fury to keep eyes on him. Maybe that’s true. Not that it matters anymore. It became more and he knows now, it was an honor to be her partner. He shouldn’t have taken it as lightly as he did. He should have been there for her in her final minutes. He should have....

Steve reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his little notebook. The pages are faded and some of them are falling out. There’s a photo tucked between the pages. Laura gave it to him earlier in the day as they both watched Clint and Wanda talking quietly near the lake.

_“Here,” Laura had said kindly. “I didn’t know if you had anything, but you should.”_

He holds the candid photo of him and Natasha on the Bartons’ old sunken-in couch, smiling at whatever game Cooper and Lila talked them into playing. Did they always sit so close? Had it always been so obvious?

“What am I supposed to do?” Steve asks the stars and the sky.

“We rebuild,” a voice says. From his left. Sam. “We’ll build a monument to her with like a bronze statue in her fight pose, batons out and everything! We gotta get the nose right or she will haunt our ass for all eternity.”

“Too soon?” Wanda asks with a barely disguised wince.

Maybe. But Steve just shakes his head, sees what Sam’s trying to do and it comes from a genuine place. Sam spent arguably the most time with them on the run and knows Natasha wouldn’t want anyone, especially Steve, moping over her as appropriate and inevitable as it feels.

 _Inevitable_.

“I dunno, Sam,” Steve says. “She was never really one for all the fanfare.”

“But she’s worth it,” Wanda interjects. “We won’t forget her and everything she did for us. I won’t forget everything she did for me. A tasteful memorial will do.”

“Naw, I’m telling you, the Black Widow was Avengers Hall of Famer status. I’m the high flying outfielder robbing dudes at the wall; Steve, you’re the prototype ace pitcher with your damn narrow waist and broad shoulders; Wanda, you’re our Golden Glove infielder and Natasha, Natasha was our catcher, calling the shots, tagging dudes out at home plate, putting us in position for a no-hitter. She put all of us in position to win.”

“She was more of a leader than I ever was,” Steve mutters.

Sam heaves a heavy sigh and drops a hand to Steve’s shoulder. In a much more somber voice, he says, “I always saw you two as a team, one-two punch. You know she’d smack you in the face right now if she heard that. You know she’d want you, all of us, to keep moving forward.”

“That was Natasha’s way,” Wanda says. “Always picking up and fighting forward, growing, being and doing better.”

Steve hears it in both their voices. They both know this is the family Natasha fought so hard to get back and they’re going to honor her with their lives. Steve knows he should feel the same, do the same, but he’s so damn tired and he doesn’t know how...

“You guys should head back and get some sleep,” Steve says. His Captain Voice slips out. When does that end too? “It was a long day. I’ll be right after you.”

“After what?” Bucky calls him out, always has been that person to, always would be. “You stay out here all night, admiring the view?”

Bucky’s voice drips sarcasm, so much like his old self even if he isn’t and won’t ever be again.

“We’ll give you a moment,” Wanda says, tugging on Sam’s sleeve, rolling her eyes at the shifty glances he throws at Bucky. “Sam, don’t make me carry you away from here with my mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, you first.”

Bucky doesn’t approach right away, just sort of lingers in the shadows, a habit from his time as the Winter Soldier that he just can’t seem to shake. Still, unlike the Winter Soldier, his presence is a welcomed one and comforting somewhat somehow.

“I’d ask how you’re doing, but that’s a stupid question, isn’t it?” Bucky asks in his usual monotone voice.

Fine. He should be fine. He’s Captain America. Even when he falls down, he puts a fist into the ground and gets back up again. He fights on. He opens his mouth to reassure Bucky as much, to say he’s fine and a sob escapes.

He’s not fine.

Thick tears spill down his cheeks and land on the small notebook. He stares down at that photo of them so goddamn happy, so unaware of what’s to come. Steve hunches forward and his entire body shakes as he continues to crumble.

Natasha always comes back. After DC. After what happened with Ultron and how she had withdrawn, she bounced back. After the Accords. After The Snap, when he’d looked over his shoulder, hers was the first face he saw. Always by his side. And he thought she always would be.

He was wrong. So goddamn wrong.

“I-I don’t… I don’t know how t-to do this without her...” Steve has to grit the words out, clenching his jaw so hard it feels like it might shatter like he’s shattering. Sniffling hard, he wipes his sleeve across his eyes just to sob into the crook of his elbow. “She was my friend. Then she… She was more. She was _everything_. And I never told her… I...”

Steve strikes the rubble beneath him with a bare fist and sends shockwaves through the ground beneath their feet.

_Too shy or too scared?_

_Too busy._

Always so damn busy.

“If some son of a bitch wasn’t out there, threatening to destroy the world, then I was out there making things worse, leaving her to clean up after my mess,” Steve continues. It’s like he can’t stop. “She never should have had to. I should have… And now she’s gone.”

The world’s leading authority on waiting too long never learns from his own damn mistakes apparently. He has to live with that knowledge. That’s his legacy.

“I’m sorry,” Steve mutters, flexing his unblemished hand. “I shouldn’t…”

“You’re grieving, Steve,” Bucky says. “You know what’s the first thing I did when Shuri cleared me to leave cryo? I sat outside my little hut and thought about my mom and my sister and that old life I had. It was a good, simple life. Cried my eyes out. It’s okay. It’s okay to grieve. It’s probably the most normal thing about us.”

Steve breathes loud and heavy, just on the edge of another sob. Bucky still keeps his distance, but gives him reassurance, not judgment and listens when Steve can’t hold back anymore and a new batch of tears break through.

“All she ever wanted was to keep all of us, the Avengers, together. Not too much to ask, right? I couldn’t even give her that, Buck. I couldn’t even bother to try. She deserved better than that from everyone, especially me. She took care of everyone. Clint’s right. What did it get her?”

He swipes at his wet eyes, squeezing them shut until it hurts.

“Maybe this last mission of yours will help,” Bucky suggests. “Maybe it’s the closure you need. There’s no going back, only forward. At least, that’s what I tell myself to get out of bed every morning.” With just a bit of teasing in his voice, Bucky says, “If that little punk I knew growing up can pick himself up every time he gets his ass kicked, I guess I can get out of bed.”

Steve runs his thumb over that picture of him and her and carefully closes his notebook and puts it back in his pocket. He takes another deep breath and clasps Bucky on the shoulder in thanks.

“Let’s go,” Steve says, wiping his hand down the length of his face. “Wanda and Sam are waiting.”

 

…

 

“Steve, I caught her with this!” Wanda walks into the kitchen of the little cottage in the Scottish Highlands the Fugitive Avengers have chosen to lay low at. She waves an encrypted laptop, Natasha’s primary vehicle for secret avenging jobs. “It’s like she doesn’t know the meaning of rest!”

“She doesn’t,” Steve and Sam say in unison.

“I can hear you talking about me!” Natasha’s nasally, croak of a voice comes from the next room.

Steve knows he shouldn’t laugh, especially when the sound of her blowing her nose follows. It’s kind of hard not to. In all the years they’ve known each other, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Natasha sick. Either she had some kind of multi-purpose miracle cure or isolated herself every time she’d gotten so much as the common cold. Being on the run, there are few places to hide from each other.

“I’ll get started on some soup,” Wanda says, moving around with the same ease he’s seen her move around the communal kitchen at the compound. She hadn’t always been so comfortable and he hates that they’ll be picking up and moving sometime soon to start all over again.

“Weren’t you on your way out?” Sam asks.

Wanda’s been doing that a lot lately, going off on her own for weeks at a time. Usually, she gives them a general sense of where she’ll be and checks in often even though technically, she’s an adult and doesn’t have to tell them anything. Doesn’t stop Steve from worrying. He put Wanda—all of them—in this position after all. Natasha senses it when he gets like this, falling into a spiral of self-loathing, touches his shoulder and reminds him that they trained Wanda, she’s strong and smart and will do as she pleases whether he approves or not.

_“Where do you think she goes?” Steve asked once._

_“To see a boy, duh,” Sam replied. “I know it was way, way back in the day, Cap, but you remember what it was like being that age, don’t you?”_

_“You’re talking to the first ever boy scout here,” Natasha teased._

“I can stay long enough to make soup,” Wanda says, twisting the dial of the old gas stove, listening to the click, click, click until blue flames appear. “You can’t eat breakfast food for every meal.”

“Girl, you know my breakfast is dope,” Sam shoots back. “Steve can crush four dozen eggs in one sitting like he’s Gaston or some shit.”

Steve smiles. He gets that reference. Though, of all the characters to compare him to?

Wanda pulls the teapot off the burner when it whistles. She hands it to Steve along with a stack of mismatched teacups and he dutifully takes them into the next room where Natasha’s huddled under a blanket on the couch, watching the all-day Harry Potter marathon, currently on Goblet of Fire. He catches just a bit of blink-and-you’d-miss-it movement the second he steps through the doorway.

“What are you hiding?” Steve asks in a specific tone she’s going to hate.

(A tone he’d first heard from Lila the Christmas she came downstairs in the middle of the night “for a glass of water” and caught Auntie Nat and Uncle Steve kissing (to avoid getting caught putting presents with tags from Santa under the tree, of course). The kid had been harder to deceive than Rumlow.)

“You can’t interrogate a sick person,” Natasha replies, so obviously congested. She really does sound pitiful. It’s...cute. “Don’t you know the rules?”

“I know you need your rest if you want to get off this couch anytime soon.” Steve pours a cup of tea for her. “Doctor Wanda’s orders.”

“I don’t know her.” Natasha wraps both hands around her teacup, blowing softly at the steam dancing on the surface.

“Feeling any better?” Steve presses the back of his hand to her forehead. Her skin’s still hot, but less so than earlier in the morning. “When was the last time you took your temperature?”

“Don’ remember. 98.6 or somethin’.”

“Exactly not a fever, huh?”

“Steeb, would I lie to you?”

His ears pick up on a buzzing and Natasha grabs her boob.

“Nat, you’re buzzing.”

She drops the charade, drops the blanket from around her shoulders, reaches into her shirt and yanks a phone out. Steve blinks. Then picks the thermometer up off the table and holds it out in front of her until Natasha takes it into her mouth with utter disdain.

The room’s a little stuffy so Steve opens a window just a bit, letting in a cool breeze, but keeping the rain out. He loves the air out here. It’s fresher, sweeter almost. It’s no wonder why they’re surrounded by such vibrant greenery and mostly farmlands. He sits down on the couch and Natasha shifts so her back is against his side, legs stretched out across the rest of the couch as her thumbs tap dance across the phone.

“You know, if Wanda catches you, we both get in trouble,” Steve says.

“Who are the adults here?” Natasha feigns outrage, her words all slurred together thanks to the thermometer under her tongue. “Plus, ‘m sick. Sick people can’t get in trouble.”

“Hear that, guys?” Steve shouts toward the kitchen. “She actually admitted—”

She practically crawls on top of him to cover his mouth with her slightly clammy palm. All without spilling her tea.

“Are you gonna be a good boy?” He nods and she wipes her hand down his shirt before settling back into his side and sipping her tea. “Maria’s on her way to touch base.”

“You are not leaving the house like this,” Steve says. “It’s storming out and walking in the rain is probably how you got like this in the first place.”

“You were walking in the rain too! Stoopid super serum. She has sensitive intel!”

“No idea what you just said.” Steve plucks the thermometer from her mouth.

“She has sensitive intel.” Natasha narrows her eyes because he knows she hates repeating herself and being sick just makes her more irritable. “I have to. It’s the job.”

Is it anymore? It’s true they would probably go stir crazy if they weren’t still protecting the world from the shadows, but is it their job? They aren’t getting paid for it, not in the form of money or recognition. But he knows Natasha needs this, needs a directive so he lets her lead and watches her back. He will put his foot down on sick days, though.

Steve checks the thermometer. “A hundred even. That’s a fever. Have you taken your medicine?”

Natasha sips her tea loudly.

“Nat…”

“You know I hate it, Steeb. I don’t like how it makes my head feel...”

Fuzzy. Like nothing’s real. Like the time Wanda had used her powers on her and showed her things that haunt her as much as her ledger.

“I know.” Steve cradles her cheek in his hand and watches as she closes her eyes, leaning into his touch. “But you need to take it. It’ll help you rest and make you feel better. Don’t worry, we’re safe here. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”

It surprises him when she doesn’t fight him any more and swallows down the liquid cold and flue medicine. The smell of which even makes Steve furrow his brow. Natasha groans and curls back up under her blanket with her head in his lap. Steve brushes her hair away from her face as her eyelids grow heavier and heavier.

“Soup’s simmering on the stove,” Wanda says quietly. “Is that a phone?”

Natasha’s limp fingers tighten around the phone she’d been clutching to her chest.

“Wanda, think you and Sam can rendezvous with Maria?” Steve asks.

“We’re there!” Sam shouts from the kitchen.

“No, I should go…” Natasha tosses her legs over the side of the couch and tries to stand. Wanda’s eyes twinkle red and a wave of psychic energy eases Natasha back down onto the couch, fluffing a pillow and putting it under her head.

“We’ll go,” Wanda says. “I’ll chaperone Romeo, I guess. You do everything for all of us, Natasha. It’s your turn to rest.” Wanda flashes her a sweet smile and points a threatening finger at Steve. “And you, make sure she rests.”

“Leave it to us, Widow!” Sam can’t mask his excitement whatsoever. He too would make a terrible spy. “It’s all under control!”

It’s not all under control, but under control enough for now. Natasha must really be feeling ill, letting herself lean against him and shut her eyes again. She doesn’t even react when he eases the phone out of her hand and gives it to Wanda for the info on the meet.

Steve strokes his fingers through her hair as she rests, nose stuffed, mouth open, her breathing loud and strained. He watches Harry Potter battle Voldemort, drawing on the strength of his parents. He watches Cedric Diggory beg Harry to bring his body back to his father. When Steve so much as shifts forward enough to pour himself tea, Natasha’s fever-warm hand shoots out to grip his wrist like a vice.

“Don’t go,” she moans.

“Just grabbing some tea,” he says gently.

“Oh.” Her grip loosens as she readjusts herself. Her eyes stay closed throughout the exchange though he isn’t sure what he would see in them if they were open.

“You think I’d leave you alone when you’re this miserable?” Steve just has to lean forward a little for his knees to hit the edge of the coffee table. He pours himself a cup of tea and sits back. “Wanda’s right, you know. You take care of everyone. This is the least we can do for you.”

“I still owe you more though…”

“You still don’t see it, do you?” He plays with a lock of her hair and still doesn’t stop even when he realizes what he’s doing. “I don’t think—I _know_ I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. I doubt I would have gotten out of DC alive if it weren’t for you.”

“Don’t get sappy on me now, Rogers. There’s still work to do.” She erupts in a series of hacking coughs and he drops his hand to her shoulder, rubbing his thumb over the base of her skull, kneading the tight knot in her neck.

“Guess I can’t give you all the credit. You never did manage to find me that date.”

“Don’t test me, Steeb. I can have them lined up in a snap.” Natasha snaps her fingers, but it’s weak and half-hearted and barely makes a sound. “Women dig a beard.”

“Go to sleep, Nat. Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

 

…

 

Steve doesn’t get a lot of sleep the night before he’s slated to return the stones.

Natasha had to practically drag him out of the compound and shove him into the car to visit Tony. They had a long, completely silent argument about it with Scott Lang’s eyes bouncing between them, ready to burst with impatience and frustration that he didn’t understand their exclusive, secret language. The rest of the Avengers gave up trying to decode it a long time ago.

After how things went down, after admitting to Tony that he’d known about the Winter Soldier being responsible for his parents’ death, Steve felt ashamed to even stand on his porch, in front of his old, former friend. Now to be staying in his house after his death… It’s no wonder Steve can’t sleep…

At least he managed to make things right between him and Tony before his death. At least they were able to rebuild that trust. At least now, Tony can rest.

But Natasha…

Steve catches himself, just barely stops himself from accidentally breaking furniture. He slips out of the lake house as quietly as he can and stares up at the sky. They’re far from the city, exactly what Tony wanted. The stars are so bright here.

Natasha died somewhere out there. And he knows she’s gone, he _knows_ that she isn’t suffering, but… She shouldn’t be left out there on some strange planet while everyone she saved picks up the pieces and moves on. No. The least he could do to thank her is bring her (if only her body) home.

Home.

How long did he spend trying to figure out what the hell that meant anymore? A man out of time and fish out of water. How many times has he thought he found a place to call home just to watch it attacked and destroyed? How many times had he and Natasha pretended to be newlyweds while renting motel rooms or making small talk with nosy neighbors around the houses they’d hide out in?

“We don’t trade lives,” Steve murmurs. “Damn it, Natasha! We don’t trade lives for anything!” He screams until his lungs burn. “That’s what we said!”

_No, that’s your mission._

He drops down on the small dock where the team had yelled and screamed and Bruce smashed. What did Steve do? Sat there silently and silently wept.

Steve plops down in that same spot, wishing he had some space alcohol right about now.

 _It’s my turn to multitask_ , Steve decides. It’s time for a side mission of his own. It’s time to draw from the Black Widow playbook.

The next day, Steve tries to rein in the flash of anger that courses through him when Bruce says he misses her. The logical part of his brain knows, he _knows_ it was the Hulk who left on that ship after Sokovia, left Natasha staring at walls and hiding behind her iron defenses and self-medicating with work. Even though Bruce and the Hulk are one and the same now, it still isn’t his fault. Bruce didn’t see what Steve did, never saw the aftermath, only how easily she brushed it off when reunited. Bruce will never know Natasha the way Steve did and there’s nothing to be angry about in that.

Steve reins in his emotions before he breaks down again and settles for returning the sentiment, preparing for this last mission. Then maybe he too can rest.  

 

...

 

It surprises everyone except Steve when he can barely drag himself out of the dirt in front of Vision’s mangled body, let alone give orders or direction. He’s Captain America. He convinced T’Challa to help, to join the fight, to let it happen on his land. Now T’Challa can’t be found along with half of the battlefield, half of all living things.

“Steve, I know you’re in shock, but we need to move.” There’s dried blue blood on Natasha’s porcelain cheek, but she doesn’t even have a second to clean it off, let alone breath, let alone break. Her arms slip beneath one of his and pull, but all her effort can barely move his useless bulk.

“Nat… I saw… I watched Bucky…”

“I know. I know, Steve.” Her gloved hand cups his jaw. Maybe he would feel the tenderness with which she holds him if he wasn’t so completely numb. “Okay. Rest. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Natasha!” He lunges for her the moment she drops her hand from his face, wrapping his strong arms around her. His head’s spinning and everything hurts and he’s blinded to the panic and the anguish around them. All he sees is her. Natasha, Nat, his friend, his partner. His… He has to hold on, has to keep eyes on her, lest she disappears when he isn’t looking. “Don’t leave. You… You can’t.”

“Someone has to. If this is happening everywhere and people have no idea what’s going on… I have to do something. Steve, let me go.”

He loosens his arms enough for her to slip away, but not before dropping a kiss to the rough material of her suit over her shoulder. He doesn’t know why he does that, isn’t thinking straight, can’t think straight. All he knows is he can’t lose her too. He can’t lose everything and everyone he cares about in one day, with one snap…

Okoye steps up alongside Natasha, the two women coordinating and taking charge. The hours that follow are a whirlwind. All Steve knows is that by nightfall he’s cleaned up and wearing borrowed clothes, slumped on a couch in the palace between Thor and Rocket (the raccoon?), with debilitating feelings of failure, anger and heartbreak looming over them.

“Well, since we’re useless…” Rocket pulls out an oddly shaped flask from who knows where. “Might as well be uselessly drunk!”

Before Steve can even say he doesn’t think that’s the best idea, Thor downs the damn flask. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Thor so down on himself, so defeated. Then again, he hasn’t seen Thor in a situation he couldn’t fight his way out of either.

“Got one for you too, Beard-o!”

And when the alien raccoon that isn’t an actual raccoon hands him a similarly shaped flask, what else is there to do? He could be in the next room with Bruce and Rhodey, helping Natasha and Wakanda security try to establish some sort of stability, but what does a super strong fugitive former poster boy for propaganda have to contribute? There’s no way to punch his way out of this one so he uses his superhuman hearing to clock Natasha’s voice in the next room, confirming and denying reports with various governments and worldwide news outlets, very much alive and present, and he drinks.

“Are you guys serious right now?” Natasha appears in the doorway some time later, hours maybe, right after Thor passes out, curled up in fetal position on his side. It isn’t quite disappointment on her face. There’s nothing on her face. The Black Widow’s in control here. Steve has no idea how she’s still on her feet.

“Hey, watch where you point that judgy nose, lady!” Rocket hiccups from where he’s sprawled out on the rug. “Didn’t you get the memo? All our friends are dead!”

“I got the memo,” Natasha snaps. “I was there too.”

“Then you should get it,” Rocket returns. “Pull up a chair. Show a damn emotion! Comin’ from me, that’s some shit right there.”

“That’s not hard to see, but the rest of you sure is.”

“Guys, not tonight.” Steve pushes himself to his feet and takes a few uncoordinated steps in her direction. “Heading to bed?”

Rocket sputters with laughter, practically convulsing on the floor. “Smooth!”

“I just meant you should,” Steve says. His head is swimming and he feels loose-limbed, but tries not to be loose-tongued. “Call it a night. It’s been a long day. We’ll regroup tomorrow.”

“In a bit.” Her eyes soften once he’s right in front of her and there’s Nat. She’s so tired, he can tell, but won’t let herself rest. She never does. “I still need to make arrangements. We need to be out of here first thing in the morning. I’m still waiting to hear from Fury, Pepper, Clint…”

He prepares to catch her if need be even if he’s a tad intoxicated and they both know she’s steadier on her feet than he is. She always has been. He just wishes she knew she didn’t have to be all the time.

“I’ll wait up with you,” Steve says, bracing a hand on the doorframe, poised to follow her, follow her anywhere.

“Really?” There’s a touch of amusement in her voice. “You’re swaying on your feet, Cap.”

Oh. He is.

“Nah, I can do this all night.”

Natasha doesn’t back down often, but tonight she chooses not to argue. She offers him her arm instead. He slides an arm around her shoulders, hers hooking around his waist. A glance over his shoulder and both Thor and Rocket have passed out in the lounge. He concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other and trusts Natasha to navigate.

“Wait,” Steve says. “Isn’t the command center that way?”

“Nothing gets by you, Rogers.”

Nothing except Thanos on his rampage to get to Vision and that stupid stone. Thanos didn’t just get by him, he went through him. Steve’s knee gives out on his next step, but Natasha’s there to help him regain his balance. He honestly doesn’t know where she finds the strength, but damn he’s grateful.

“It’s not your fault, Steve.”

Steve laughs and it’s such a sad, broken sound he’d be embarrassed in front of anyone else. Natasha knows how sad he can be and still sticks by him for some reason. “Ever get tired of telling me that?”

“Not when I know I’m right.” Natasha takes his hand and fixes his arm more securely around her shoulders. He feels bad about leaning on her, for having the weight on his shoulders drop onto hers for the umpteenth time. “It happened. Now we need to focus on stabilizing what’s left of the world. One thing at a time. We—”

“Have work to do?” Steve finishes for her, less determined than her, much more bitter. “When does it end? When does the work end? When it finally kills us?”

“Take tonight if you need it,” Natasha says in a calm, steady voice. “Take stock, cry, kick yourself, but in the morning, the world needs Captain America and I need you, Steve. Please don’t make me have to do this alone.”

They stop just outside the door to the room T’Challa always lets him stay in when he visits to check in on Bucky. He’s been here a few times now, but always feels like a guest and a spoiled guest at that. It never started to feel like his room or home. Mostly because it isn’t his to call home and then he realizes home will always be wherever she is.

The damn space alcohol might have lowered his inhibition, but it’s all him, all his gratitude and desperate relief that she hadn’t been taken when Steve leans in and kisses her. It’s different from the kiss on the elevator where she had taken him by surprise. This time it’s his eager mouth on hers, trying to communicate how she is all that’s holding him together. It’s been her for some time now.

The sound she makes in the back of her throat just before she kisses back has him pressing her into the door. Her lips part, inviting him in, her arms around his shoulders, holding on, gripping tight, like she’s afraid to let go, afraid he might disappear too. He smiles against her mouth and she kisses it away, hungrier, clawing at him. Natasha reaches behind her and opens the door without breaking the kiss, maneuvering them into the room.

“Thank God you’re still here.” Steve drops his head onto her shoulder and kisses the bare skin he finds there. He touches her everywhere he can, desperate to feel her solid muscle beneath soft skin, desperate to make sure she’s real. “You’re here…”

“Steve.” Her voice is a warning that tails off into a whimper. “Stop.”

And her words are enough to cut through the haze in his head, the rush of _finally_ and the loud hammering of his heart. He pulls away enough to take in her wide-eyed expression. She’s still clinging to him like she might fall apart if she doesn’t so then why? He’s sure she sees the question in his eyes, but doesn’t answer right away.

He tries to laugh it off. God bless him he tries. “So, was that your first kiss since DC?”

Then he realizes. It’s not. For either of them.

Stupid.

Steve clears his throat awkwardly. “Is it because of Bruce?”

She tries to keep her face emotionless, but he sees the way the space between her brows creases. “Did you seriously just ask me that? What did the trash panda give you to drink?”

“Then why?”  

“We’re trauma bonded,” Natasha says in a flat whisper. “Loyalty that’s formed due to shared negative circumstances.”

“Natasha…”

“We just went through a massively traumatic event. We’ve been through so many and this is easily the worst. I get it. You want comfort.”

“I want _you_ ,” Steve says. “Years of traumatic events and close calls are exactly what I’d call shared life experience.”

“I’m being serious, Steve.”

“So am I. How much longer are we going to do this dance? We’re still here. I’m not saying it means something other than dumb luck, but we’re still here. If I’m being honest, and you know I always am, I should’ve kissed you a long time ago.”

Natasha won’t meet his eyes and he can feel her pulling away. “This isn’t the time.”

“It’s never going to be. There’s no such thing as the right time. Believe me, I’d know.”

They just lean against each other for a breath. Despite her hesitation, she doesn’t try to squirm away or give any indication that this isn’t exactly where she wants to be, in his arms, being held as tightly as he’s holding her.

“I want more for you than what I’ve got,” Natasha whispers, so honest it hurts.

He drops a kiss to the crown of her head because damn it, of course she thinks that. It’s just like her to, isn’t it? “We have what we have when we have it, remember?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to use someone’s words against them?”

Steve chuckles and noses against her cheek until she tilts her head up enough for him to kiss her again, softer this time and full of tender worship. “Please stay. Stay with me tonight. Just rest. We can just sleep or at least try to. I don’t wanna be alone and I don’t want you to be alone either.”

“Okay.”

And he’ll take it. He’ll take as much as she’s willing to give. He’s sure he can do this for the rest of his life.

 

…

 

Erskine’s serum might make him jump higher, run faster and use his body to crash a helicopter, but all his newfound strength could never outweigh his human heart. This trip back in time to return the stones shows Steve that he’s only human after all. He has weaknesses like all humans do.

Steve can’t stop himself from ducking into that same office at Camp Lehigh just one more time. He sees the framed photo of him from a past life on one side of the desk and another of Peggy and another man, the flash of the camera gleaming off their matching wedding bands. They look happy together. They look like a family.

Of course she’d be married by 1970. He couldn’t expect her to pine after a dead man until eventually dying of old age. Peggy had too much to do, too much life to live and she did it, like everything else, to the best of her ability.

That’s not all he notices this time around. There’s a rather thick file open on the desk. He blames the serum for how his eyes merely scan over the heavily redacted pages and pick out certain curious keywords: Soviet, Leviathan, girls handcuffed to their beds.

The Red Room.

It’s been on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar this long? The organization that made a girl with no family into the Black Widow, the source of all that pain and guilt Natasha carried with her, has been operating for so long who knows how many girls had come before her, how many girls were broken then discarded when no longer deemed useful? Hydra has probably already burrowed itself into S.H.E.I.L.D. by now...

“Turn around,” a posh British voice says from behind him. “Slowly.”

Peggy.

This isn’t apart of the plan. Then again, he has been known to improvise.

Steve puts his hands up and slowly turns to face her. When Peggy sees him, her face contorts in shock and the stapler she had lifted above her head as if to be used as a makeshift weapon slips from her grip and hits the floor.

“Hi, Peg. It’s been a while.”

 

…

 

“Should we even bother? How do you know he won’t see my name on the card and toss it out without even opening it?”

“Because my name will be on the card too and Pepper won’t let him.”

She does have a point. Natasha always does.

Steve rests his hands on his hips, watching Natasha scan over a rack of baby bodysuits at a fairly empty department store. She slides each outfit by the hanger across the metal bar one-by-one extra slowly just to mess with him, he‘s sure. Shopping for the soon-to-be newest addition to the Stark family had been her idea after all and it took a bit of convincing to get him to join her.

It’s actually good to see her outside of the compound. After Thanos’ death, no one knew what to do for a time. Tony wanted nothing to do with any of it, happy to make good on yet another chance at life to start a family. Thor had his people to lead. Clint checked in once and only long enough to tell them his whole family is gone and not to come after him.

Bruce went off to try to work things out with the Hulk. Steve overheard (so maybe he was eavesdropping) Bruce ask Natasha if she’d like to go with him (for Lullaby purposes and whatnot) and Steve doesn’t think he’d ever been more relieved in his life when she declined.

Steve and Natasha don’t talk about their relationship and maybe that’s okay. They know what they are to each other. They’re quiet meals and comfortable silence and intense gym time and sex where she draws blood across his back with her nails and he holds her like she’s all that keeps him anchored to the present. They have the entire, giant compound mostly to themselves, but sleep in the same bed most nights. She guides him back after a nightmare and he does the same for her.

There’s a long, world-wide mourning period where monuments go up and life revolves around the loss. Slowly, but surely people start to find joy in living again, celebrating holidays, getting married, having babies. Steve starts attending group meetings then leading meetings and he’s sure Sam would be proud. Natasha takes it upon herself to monitor crime around the world and touch base with anyone and everyone left in their circle.

They carry the memory of the dead everywhere they go, but also carve out something resembling stability. Steve and Natasha do it together.

“Why so uncomfortable, Steve?” Natasha asks, turning her attention to a shelf of Disney plushies. “I thought you had fond memories of the mall.”

He frowns at a youth baseball glove exactly like one he’s sure he saw at the Barton farm the last time he was there. “You know that’s not the word I’d use.”

“It’s good, healthy even to leave the compound for reasons other than group.”

“Look who’s talking.” He smiles over at her and the shape of his mouth feels so foreign on his face. “The only time you leave is when you’re running out of peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter is a very important source of protein.” Natasha gasps theatrically at something she spots on a nearby rack and holds up a blue baby bodysuit with Captain America’s cowl on it along with the words: _Captain Adorable_. Steve huffs out something that could be mistaken for a laugh and catches the tag between his fingers.

“I guess a presidential pardon doesn’t get you off the clearance rack.”

He’s about to ask if she plans to actually attend Pepper’s baby shower when Natasha darts to the side. Her spring into action has Steve on edge immediately, but then he sees her catch a baby burping towel before it touches the ground. A flustered mother nearby has a baby that can’t be more than a handful of months old and a double stroller with two bickering, shrieking toddlers.

I _s she alone?_ Steve wonders. _Who did she lose?_

Questions like that have really taken the fun out of people watching.

“Thank you so much, hon.” The mother, clearly overwhelmed, gazes at Natasha with such desperate, wet eyes as she tilts her baby forward. “Would you mind terribly if… Can you hold him while I…?”

The mother almost bursts into tears, thanking Natasha as she takes the baby into her arms and holds him like he’s seen her hold Nate when he was exactly that small, rocking on the balls of her feet and talking in a soft, sweet voice. Seeing Natasha smiling and cooing at a baby tugs at something deep in his soul. It’s mesmerizing. It’s like a daydream come to life.

“Hi, baby,” Steve says when Natasha dances the baby closer to him and big, wide eyes lock onto his. “How are you doing, little man?”

“He’s an angel compared to his siblings. Thank you so much.” After tending to her now quiet toddlers, each clutching a toy to keep them occupied, the mother takes her baby back from Natasha and kisses his plump, rosy cheek. “Are you two…?”

“Expecting? No,” Natasha answers quickly. “Shopping for a friend’s shower.”

“Well, that’s nice. Just a few months ago, it felt near impossible to do something as mundane as shopping and yet here we are, huh? I guess that’s just life. Thank you again.”

“It’s really no problem,” Natasha replies. “He’s a really sweet baby.”

“I’m sure when it happens for you two, your children will be just as sweet as mom and dad and just as gorgeous.” The woman giggles and coos at her baby as she wheels the stroller towards the aisle over and out of sight.

“Well, she was nice,” Natasha turns her attention back to her shopping, “if presumptuous.”

“I don’t know why it surprises me that you’re good even with a stranger’s child.”

“I did go undercover as an au pair once.”

“And Clint’s kids adore you.”

Natasha’s hand freezes mid-reach for something. Clint and his family has been a touchy subject. Steve has seen the maps and scribbles she sometimes falls asleep on, tracking Clint’s movement (and body count) before he turns out the lights and carries her to bed. He knows when she crawls into his lap and presses her face into his chest without saying anything that Rhodey delivered new not-so-great news and Steve comforts her however she wants.

“I’m sorry,” Steve apologizes, scratching the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have…”

“Is getting Iron Man’s child Iron Man-themed clothing too on-the-nose?” Natasha holds up a red and yellow baby bodysuit.

“It has abs.” Steve deadpans. “I bet Tony commissioned and approved the design himself.”

“Don’t be jealous because Iron Man merch is regular price and a featured item.” Natasha returns the bodysuit to the rack and leans back into his chest. Steve wraps an arm around her waist and drops his chin to the spot where her neck curves into her shoulder. “Maybe we should play it extra safe and just get diapers. God, can you picture Tony Stark changing diapers?”

“I am and it’s not pretty.” There he goes again, smiling against Natasha’s skin. He wonders how long before he can smile without feeling guilty. “He has Pepper. They have each other. They’ll figure it out.”

“Or he’ll build something to try to do it for him.”

Another sound resembling a laugh leaves him and it still feels too soon. “Or that.”

 

…

 

“Well, that’s quite the story,” Peggy says, sitting in her chair with her heels kicked off. “And how many stones have you returned so far?”

“All, but one.” Steve places his hand over the secure case on the desk.

“Saved the best for last, did you?”

“Best and hardest.” He feels his chest tighten and he has to try a little harder to breathe. His hand moves of its own accord, drawing an R over and over on the outside of the case. “Before I go, I just need to know… You’re happy, right?”

“I won’t lie to you, Steve. It wasn’t easy for a long time after losing you, even after the war ended, but you know me. I was never one to take the easy path in life. To answer your question, I am very much so.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He lets out a long breath. “And your husband?”

“A fan of yours actually. Always talks about how you rescued him and his battalion, how fortunate I was to meet you and you me,” Peggy says with a delighted laugh full of affection. She had looked the exact same way when she told him about her husband and family in the future. “And oh God, Howard. Ever since he found out Maria was pregnant, he’s been pushing us to try for one. He’s used the words ‘betrothal’ and ‘Stark-Carter dynastic’ more than a few times I’ll have you know, but he’s just terrified and wishing I was terrified with him.”

“That sounds like Howard,” Steve agrees. “With those genes, that kid is going to be a handful.”

“Most definitely. I’d like to say it’s only karma on Howard’s behalf, but God forbid Maria has to put up with two Howards.”

Steve laughs and reaches over, giving her hand a squeeze the way she would when he’d visit her in the future. “You did good, Peg. You did so much good with your life.”

Peggy motions all around her. “Look around, Steve. None of this would exist if I hadn’t met you, if Doctor Erskine hadn’t seen you for your heart.”

“Sure, but you made it a reality. You did it all.”

“It sounds like you did a lot of good so far in your lifetime as well. And you’ve been reunited with Bucky! Second chances like that don’t come around often or ever.” Peggy squeezes his hand back. “Tell me, did you finally find the right partner you were waiting for?”

“I did, actually.” It surprises him how easy the words come, how freeing they are. “She’s an Avenger...was. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Avenger. She sacrificed herself so we could get one of the stones. She gave her soul in exchange for it.”

Peggy’s grin, so damn proud of him, suddenly dims. “That’s the last stone you’re talking about? Is this your goodbye tour through time or something?”

“I guess you can call it that…”

“Well, she sounds like a real hero.”

Steve grins even as his eyes fill with tears. It hits him that he’s never told anyone else about their relationship, never had the chance to. They barely defined their relationship in words to each other, but he would get a few envious looks from the other people at group sometimes like they knew he had someone to go home to. It feels fitting somehow that Peggy is the first one he really tells.

“I’ve already stayed longer than I should,” Steve says, “but...can I ask one more thing before I go?” Steve stands and extends a hand to her with a dip of a bow. “Can I have this dance?”

Peggy purses her red lips and turns a knob on the radio on her desk. Smooth jazz flows through the speakers. It’s a song that immediately takes him back. _It has to be fate_ , he thinks, taking Peggy into his arms and swaying gently. Even as they dance in the middle of her office, Steve’s eyes flit back to the case every so often as if he’s afraid it might disappear or anxious because once this song ends, he knows what’s left for him to do.

“Did that partner of yours dance?” Peggy asks.

“Ballet dancer,” Steve replies. “We did the most complicated dance for years when it could have been so simple if we both just... I wish I’d known the steps ahead of time, you know? I wish I didn’t spend so much time sitting on the side…”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You always were, even back in the day.” Peggy frames his face with both hands and stares deeply into his eyes. “I hope this brings you peace, Steve Rogers. That’s all I’ve ever hoped for you.”

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Goodbye, Peggy.”

“Goodbye, my darling.”

 

…

 

Steve stops her in the stairwell and kisses her up against the door. Natasha tries to curl her fingers into the longest part of his hair and a breathy laugh escapes her lips when he presses his hips to hers. She tilts her head back and scrunches her face in that way that makes him melt.

“Really?” Natasha asks. “With the team _and_ Tony just on the other side of this door?”

“Can’t help it.” Steve slips his hand under her gray top. She arches into his touch, trying to get closer, more. “I saw you taking notes on your notepad.”

Natasha laughs with her entire face. “ _That_ got you all hot and bothered?”

“You know me.” He noses at her chin and she turns her head to the side so he can kiss and lick at the pulse in her neck. “The Science Bros are preoccupied with science stuff. I doubt they even notice we’re gone.”

“Clint will notice,” Natasha says knowingly. “As amusing as it is, the idea of the old gang coming back together just to catch Captain America with his pants down…”

“Ha ha.” His fake, dry laughter turns into a gasp when she grinds her hips against his.

“You’re really excited about this,” Natasha says. “Not the quickie, the so-called time heist.”

“It’ll work, Nat.” Steve palms her breast through her bra with one hand and plays with the end of her braid with the other. “Tony’s back. Clint. Bruce went all the way to New Asgard and got Thor… It feels like this is how it was always meant to be. All of us working together. Finally.”

Like an actual team. An actual family.

Natasha slips out from between him and the door and starts dragging him up the stairs by the hand. He’s happy to let her lead him anywhere, across the universe if she wants. He knows hope can be dangerous, especially in their line of work, but he feels it. He feels it in full force for the first time in too long.

“Hey, did you realize our outfits match?” Steve asks. “Even the other day. Scott pointed it out.”

“Coincidence,” Natasha says dismissively. “Leave it to Scott to notice something like that.” She shrugs her shoulders while shoving into her room. “Wearing dark colors only seems appropriate these days and we matched on the field for the last few years. It’s only natural for it to bleed into our daily life.”

“He asked if it was a cute couple-y thing. I decided not to comment.”

“Good boy.”

They spend their nights in Steve’s room because he knows she still likes having her own space and he can’t fault her for that.

Steve spends a moment marveling at framed photos of all of them from the original six Avengers to when they were on the run and Wanda and Sam begged them to go sightseeing even if crowds of people who could potentially recognize them made Natasha nervous. He spots a scarf Wanda had gotten her for Christmas, a book Sam suggested, Crayola artwork from Lila. Making such connections and keeping such personal items goes against everything the Red Room taught her. She’s come so far from that, so far into her own and he hopes she realizes it.

“Is it weird I still have all this stuff?” Natasha asks.

“No. Just because they’ve been gone a long time doesn’t mean we should forget them.” Steve draws her closer. “It’d be easy and cowardly to just try to forget everything, forget them. It takes strength to remember and honor them. That’s all you, Nat.”

She gazes up at him in this way she does sometimes like she can’t believe he’s even real and can’t believe she’s allowed to be with him like this. She’s wrong, of course. He’s the lucky one to have ever met her and for her to choose to continue to be in his sad life. Steve sets out to prove it in the way he kisses her, sliding his large hands up under her top, all along her skin. He touches her with confidence, doesn’t treat her like she’s breakable. She’s proven the contrary a thousand times over.

Natasha tugs at the edge of his shirt and he moves his arms from around her long enough to get it off over his head. She smirks as she traces a finger from his navel up between his pecs and his chest muscles jump under the light, teasing touch. He hisses her name like a curse word and has to kiss her again so he does as his eager hands work at undressing her.

She breaks away with a muffled sound. “Steve, we don’t have much time.”

“There’s never enough time,” he murmurs against her neck, biting at that spot that makes her moan and tense then go boneless in his arms. “So we make time.”

He works her clothes off until she’s standing in front of him in only a matching black bra and panties. Practical. Sexy without trying to be. She sits on the edge of the bed, arranging herself in a way that shows off all of her curves, not to seduce, but to tease. It’s playful. It’s Natasha, not Black Widow.

She starts to scoot up the bed and somehow makes it look graceful, but Steve has other ideas, catching her ankle and dragging her back down the bed. Natasha laughs, sitting up on her elbows to watch him, keeping her powerful thighs clamped together. Spurred on by the single raise of her eyebrow, Steve grips her knees and eases her legs apart.

“You really should speed this up, Steve, if you don’t want the others—”

Her voice splinters into a moan, squeezing her eyes shut and rolling her body into him. He uses her increasingly husky, desperate sounds as a guide, teasing her with his lips and tongue as she trembles beneath him. When she starts bucking her hips and her sounds turn frustrated, cursing his name, Steve laughs and presses a sweet kiss to the inside of her thigh. She wants more and he gives it to her, adding his fingers, thrusting into her, sucking and stroking the places she needs, that make her rock her hips against his mouth. Her back bows when she comes, a sharp cry tumbling from her lips. He admires the stretch of her pretty neck and how she flutters around his tongue.

So fucking beautiful.

“C’mere, soldier.”

Natasha tugs on his hair playfully. Steve sucks the taste of her off his fingers and drops a gentle kiss on that abdominal scar. He joins her on the bed and meets her lips in a kiss, letting her taste herself on his tongue. It never gets old, not with her. They never tire of each other, having each other. He could do this if only with her all day, all night, forever.

She undoes the button of his jeans and Steve fights to get them off. It isn’t smooth, but he hardly cares when he’s so damn hard. Natasha’s laugh sounds steeped in amusement so there’s that. The way her eyes trail up and down his naked body can only be described as predatory and he’s more than happy to be her prey. She shoves him until his back hits the mattress and now it’s her with her hands on his knees.

Natasha straddles his waist and her weight and warmth atop him has become so familiar, so comforting. He knows he’s so damn lucky to have this, to have her stretched out atop him, leaning down to kiss him languidly as if there isn’t work they should be doing, as if they really do have all the time in the world. He touches her everywhere he can as they kiss—sliding up and down her arms, teasing her breasts, tracing her curves, brushing over _that scar_ , all of her scars, all of her.

His name slips from her mouth in a compulsive rasp like she just can’t help it, like she’s as lost in this, in him, as he is in her. She slips a hand around his aching cock that’s been hopelessly prodding at the crease of her hip and strokes the length of him once, twice, a few more times before guiding him home.

The grunting and groaning that leaves his mouth when she sinks down on him would be embarrassing if Steve cared about anything other than Natasha and the way she watches him through half-lidded, pleasure hazy eyes. She continues to move atop him, slowly at first, to tease him, he’s sure, then she takes him all the way down to the hilt.

Steve throws his head back and barely hears the headboard crack, gritting his teeth as he pulses inside her. His hands find her waist, not to grip or guide, just loosely holds on as Natasha controls the pace. He lets her take what she wants. Steve’s mouth hangs open as he matches her movement, groaning at the hot wet clutch of her around him. Feels so damn good. So fucking perfect. She’s so fucking perfect.

“Perfect?” Natasha laughs then mewls, biting her lip, leaning back a bit to feel him right _there_.

Shit. He said that out loud? He hadn’t meant to. But…

“Yeah.” Steve slips a hand between them, rubbing at her clit, watching as she grows more frantic, yet somehow still graceful. What a woman… Fucking perfect. “Yeah, Nat,” he rambles between heaving breaths, “you’re perfect…”

Natasha pitches her body forward to kiss and bite at his lips before she goes completely rigid and comes again. She keeps moving, grinding against him until Steve shudders violently beneath her and lets out an open mouth wail, coming inside her. Steve can barely breath, chest heaving, but somehow manages to sit up and gather her in his arms to hold her close and trade gentle, lazy kisses.

“That good, huh?” Natasha teases, pressing a kiss to his chest. _Over his heart_ , he thinks, hopes. She rolls off of him and starts to collect their clothes, complaining about her hair that’s come free from the braid in some places and how it screams afternoon sex. Steve sits back, content to just watch her and listen to her and commit this moment and how he feels to memory.

(Looking back, after the war against Thanos had been won, in those pockets of respite they somehow managed to carve out of their lives hardened by duty, he should have told her. All those times Steve settled for their secret language and silent communication, he should have used his words. Pep talks to rally the troops come easy, but in those stolen moments with Natasha, he never told her in words how much he loved her. He should have.)

 

...

 

Vormir.

It’s eerie and strange like something out of a science fiction picture. Then again, the same can probably be said about Steve’s entire life.

Bleak and desolate with an eternal eclipse in the sky, darkness blocking out the light. Gray clouds swirl over a purple sky with pops of pink in the distance. Steve clutches the last stone, Natasha’s stone, tight in his fist and begins to climb the rocky terrain as flurries of snow come down and never seem to stop.  

Eventually he comes to a cave that opens to two large stone structures at the edge of a cliff, resembling a sort of altar. Before Steve can get any closer, a dark figure descends down upon him.

“Welcome, Steven, son of Sarah.”

He’d know that voice anywhere, in any lifetime.

“You,” Steve mutters. “Son of a bitch.”

The dark, floating figure removes its hood to reveal the ugly red skull of his nightmares. Steve’s fists tighten, but he reminds himself not to crush the stone in his hand. A Dementor in a Scooby-Doo mask, as Clint had described him. This ugly mug is one of the last two faces Nat saw at the end? It’s not fair. None of this is fair.

“It is my curse to know all who journey here, but you, the kid from Brooklyn, I know a great deal more about you, don’t I?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Steve spits. “By the way, we won the war.”

“Did you?”

That gives him pauses and Steve hates that, hates letting that monster make him question himself for even a second. Steve knows he lost a great deal personally, but he has to count this as a win. If not, his sacrifice, going into the ice, and Natasha’s would be in vain and he won’t let that happen.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks. He doesn’t care, but he has to ask, he has to know, for his own peace of mind.

“I don’t have to tell you that I too sought the stones. As you recall, I even held one in my hand…”

Steve glances down at the stone in his own hand, glimmering orange.

“But it cast me out,” Schmidt continues. “Banished me here. Now it’s my fate to guide others to a treasure I cannot possess.”

“I can’t think of a single soul that deserves it more,” Steve replies. “If the stones can punish you, does that mean they can reward others? Who’s in charge? Who decides? Thanos used the stones for his own selfish, mad agenda then destroyed them. Natasha sacrificed herself so we could undo what he did and now I brought the stone back so you bring her back! A soul for a soul, right?”

“Yell all you want. I’m merely a guide—”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time.”

Steve walks forward, right up to the edge, ignoring the way the frozen wind whips across his face. This is where she stood? Did she steal a moment to admire the view?

It kills him not to know. It’s always been the two of them side-by-side in battle, ready to face down death and make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary. The idea of the one time he wasn’t there with her…

He peers over, but doesn’t see anything or anyone down there. No Natasha, no body. So this is it? He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but in this moment, standing where Natasha died with the Red Skull of all fucking whatever he is, the loneliness and helplessness overwhelm him.

“Where’s her body? At least give me her body.”

“It no longer exists on this physical plane.”

No. No! That can’t be true! He has to be lying!

But when Steve narrows his eyes further and sees past those vacant, soulless eyes, he knows it’s the truth. He’d known all along, hadn’t he? How many times has everyone said it? She’s gone.

“How do I return it?” Steve asks, all fight and hope drained out of him.

“It’s a peculiar predicament indeed. Those who seek the stone tend not to return.”

“Helpful,” Steve scoffs. He holds his hand out toward Red Skull, but the stone’s servant does not react, does not stretch out his hand in return, almost as if he can’t. After all, a stone burned and punished him once already, hasn’t it?

“Perhaps you must return it from which it came.”

Steve glances over the edge of the cliff once more before inspecting the stone in his palm one last time. It’s still hard to believe something so small could cause so much trouble and spill so much blood. A part of him is reluctant, stalling probably, but Bruce explained to him over and over again that the stones must be returned.

So Steve presses a kiss to the soul stone and lets it slip from between his fingers. His human heart aches for Natasha and that stone is all that’s left of her…

No! He can’t give up that easy. There has to be something more he can do! Steve jumps and catches the stone. He thinks of jumping out of a quinjet in the middle of a fight between two gods even when Agent Romanoff (he can't believe he’d ever called her “ma’am” like seriously) cautioned him against it. He thinks about jumping without a parachute onto the Lemurian Star with her just behind him.

He falls like he did into the Potomac, feeling a similar sensation just before the Valkyrie crashed. Steve twists onto his back mid-air and watches blue lights pulse in the clouds above.

And everything goes black.

When Steve stirs, he’s surrounded by orange from the dirt beneath his aching body to the sky above him to the fog surrounding him. All orange everything like the soul stone. What the hell?

…Is this hell?

Steve sees slow moving silhouettes in the orange fog, but only one dares to creep closer and closer to him. He scrambles to his feet, poised to fight, but his fists go limp when he recognizes that hourglass figure.

“Natasha!”

“Steve,” she whispers his name, watching him barrel toward her like she’s too afraid to believe her eyes incase she winds up disappointed. There’s already been so much disappointment in her life. “What are you doing here?” Understanding fills her brilliant green eyes. “You wouldn’t stop.”

“Not if there was a chance to bring you back or just see you again.” A sob catches in his throat and he clings to her tight. “What is here?”

She blinks at him. “This is where I’ve been since… Did it work?”

He sweeps strands of red hair away from her face and tucks them behind her ear. “It worked. We lost Tony and you, but everyone else is back, safe. Sam, Wanda, Laura and the kids. All thanks to you. We never would have even had a shot without you. I can’t believe you did that! I can’t believe you…”

“You sound pretty hypocritical for a war hero who crashed himself along with a plane full of explosives into the Arctic.” Her lips spread in a wide smile and her body relaxes in his arms.

“I’m here to bring you back,” he whispers into her hair. “Your soul for the soul stone.”

“I’m not sure it works that way.”

“If it did, you know you’re worth it, right?” Steve asks. “I need to hear you say it, Nat. If this is it, if this is goodbye…” He squeezes his arms tighter around her, but he’s careful not to squeeze her too hard. She can still feel, right? “I need to hear you say you know you’re a hero, that you can’t trade your life to wipe out your ledger, that your life is worth more than that, worth just as much as Clint’s or mine, that you’re worth living…”

“Steve…” Natasha claws at his suit over his chest and squeezes her eyes tight before she meets his, nothing but honesty in hers. “I didn’t for a long time. I was a weapon, a murderer, a monster…”

“ _Natasha_ ,” he hisses her name.

She silences him with a single look like the woman he remembers, the woman he loves. “It’s true. It was my truth for a long time. Even after Clint brought me in, even after we brought down S.H.I.E.L.D, I thought I was living on borrowed time and my ledger was my life. I still don’t regret making the call. If it was down to me or Clint, I’d do it again. Before, I thought I was working with the good guys and for the good guys, but never thought of myself as one… But as an Avenger, fighting by your side, Steve, I realized I did, I was, more than I ever thought possible.” She beams up at him. “I did good, didn’t I?”

“You did. You’re the best.” Steve beams back, watching his vision blur. “The best of us. According to Fury anyway.”

“Fury said that about me?” She laughs.

“With Carol standing right there!”

Natasha starts to cry into his chest in earnest now. “Steve, if this is goodbye, I need to hear you say you’ll finally live your life.”

“How am I supposed to do that without you?”

“You have to try. Promise, Steve.”

He doesn’t want to. Not without her, but if this is it, if the stone really can’t return her and only granted them this small mercy, he has to try. “I promise.”

“Good.” Natasha grins in that bratty way she does when she gets what she wants and knew she would all along. “And you’re always honest, right?”

“With you? Always.” He cradles her in his arms and starts to sway gently from side to side. She wraps both arms around his neck and lets him lead. “Did it hurt? When you fell?”

“From heaven? Because I’m an angel? That’s the lamest pick-up line in the book of lame pick-up lines, Rogers. You’ll have to do better than that if you want to get a date.”

“Nat…”

“No,” she answers. “There was no pain. I thought about Clint while I was falling and how grateful I am that he saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. I thought about you and all those years of stolen glances. Why’d we waste so much time anyway?”

“Too shy, too scared, too busy, too stupid,” Steve lists. It makes his heart swell when he hears her laugh right near his ear. Her eyes are so bright, the brightest he’s ever seen. “I love you, Nat.”

Some trepidation on her part is expected and honestly, that’d be okay with him, but Natasha just looks at him the exact same way she had in the graveyard that day before they (stupidly) went their separate ways and the words come so easy for her. “I love you too, Steve.”

He kisses her like nothing else in the universe matters because it doesn’t. Only her. Only ever her.

Steve wakes up.

Steve wakes up in a puddle of cold water, gazing up at the Vormir sky. He sits up enough to see he’s at the bottom of the cliff he dove off of. And he’s alone. Was that a dream? It couldn’t have been. She was right there! He held her in his arms! It felt real…

“Natasha!” he shouts.

No response.

“Natasha!”

Is this really it? Is this how they end? Where does he go from here? Where’s home?

The war’s finally, finally over. He’s supposed to bring her home…

He failed. Again.

Steve wonders how hard he has to strike the ground to crack the cursed planet in two. His mask flickers across his face and he disappears before he’s tempted to try.

 

…

 

Steve reappears in 2023 in a daze. His ears are buzzing. His head and his heart hurt. Everything hurts. He collapses and lets his eyes flutter shut, vaguely hearing Bruce shouting for help and feeling hands on him, trying to remove his suit, but they won’t find anything physically wrong with him. At least, he doesn’t think the fall hurt him as much as having to return without Natasha, not even her body.

 _“Steve, talk to me. What’s wrong?”_ she asks in his head.

Is this what his life is going to be from now on? Will the only time he ever hears her smoky, perfect voice again be a figment of his imagination?

_“Steve, open your eyes. Look at me.”_

“Will in a minute,” he slurs. He’s just so, so tired. He doesn’t know if he can do any of this for much longer. Maybe he needs a vacation, but only after Natasha’s funeral even if they have to bury an empty casket...

_Smack!_

Steve’s eyes pop open. Did someone seriously just smack him in the face?

And there she is, hovering above him with her blonde-tipped red hair falling over one shoulder. Her eyes sparkle and her lips tug to one side, so damn proud of herself. Mission accomplished apparently. Steve sits up so quickly it makes his head spin and purple lights burst in his eyes, but even then, Natasha doesn’t disappear. She’s here? She’s here!

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I know it was a little more than a minute.”

Steve doesn’t answer, can’t speak, just wraps his arms around her and yanks her into his lap. “Nat… What? How?”

“I’m not sure,” Natasha confesses. “The soul stone has a special place among the stones, a kind of wisdom, I guess. After you disappeared from that place…” He nods, yeah, he remembers too, that was real for him too and the confirmation makes her relax a little more. “You dropped the stone. I picked it up, held it in my hand and… It...cast me out. I woke up here.”

_If the stones can punish, does that mean they can reward?_

And here’s his answer right in front of him.

"I know it sounds crazy,” Natasha says.

“I don’t care,” Steve murmurs. His hands run wild on her arms, her shoulder, her face. It makes her laugh and entwine her arms around him. “You’re here… You’re here. Natasha, we’re here…”

“I think we’ve established that, Steve.” She leans in and tilts her head as if to kiss him, but pulls back at the very last second with wide, open eyes. “You meant it, right? What you said?”

“What?” He finds it in himself to tease even with tears on his cheeks. “That I love you? That I’m in love with you? I do. I am.”

“Good.” Natasha gives him one of her trademark mischievous, biting grins and he swears his heart has never felt so full. “Because I don’t plan on wasting any more time dancing around feelings.”

“Then you should probably kiss me.” Steve feels like his face might break from how hard he’s smiling and he’d still be the happiest man on earth. “I did pull a Hercules to try and get my best girl back.”

“My hero.” Natasha leans in until their lips touch.

“You’re mine,” he whispers. “My hero.”

 

…

 

“Strike three! You’re out!”

Nathaniel Barton slams his baseball bat into the dirt in anger and frustration and returns to the dugout while the other team runs out onto the field to celebrate the win.

“He gets that from his namesake, y’know,” Clint says with his famous, shit-eating grin on his face. Steve shakes his head, wearing a shirt exactly like his fellow former Avenger’s with COACH in white letters across the back. “I been meaning to ask, coach, why’s your shirt so tight? Wife order you the wrong size or you let Tasha try to do laundry unsupervised again?”

“F’you ask me, she talks me into going a size down on purpose.” Steve tugs on the tight sleeves of his shirt threatening to burst if he flexes too hard. He crosses his left arm over his chest and the midday sunlight catches on the wedding band on his finger.

“And all the other baseball moms are very appreciative,” Laura adds from the end of the dugout. She gives her youngest son a supportive squeeze and encourages him to join his teammates in high-fiving the other team.

“Did I really come back here just so you could roast me in person?” Natasha asks.

“Duh, girl!” Sam shouts, coming in from third base in a coach’s shirt of his own. “Why else?”

“I can think of a few reasons.” Steve rounds the side of the dugout, eyes for only Natasha and the red-haired baby boy in her arms, wearing a _Captain Adorable_ bodysuit. He kisses his wife (his wife!) sweetly on the lips before turning his attention to their son (their son!). “Hey, Jamie. How’s my future Silver Slugger?”

“He only threw himself towards the field, wanting to go play with daddy twice this time,” Natasha says.

“Only twice?” Steve asks in that high-pitch way people talk to babies. “I’d call that self-restraint.”

“Something both mommy and daddy lack,” Wanda chirps with a cheeky smile. “Lunch is ready!”

Laura ushers all of the children to where Cooper and Lila helped lay out hamburgers and buns and all the condiments and Bucky continues to man the grill. Sam goes right over to give Bucky a hard time and his oldest friend dishes it right back. Bucky has grown in leaps and bounds, adjusting to the modern world, to his newfound freedom, to joining a new Captain America in the same ol’ fight. Steve feels fortunate to have witnessed it.

(Natasha, who assembled and oversees this newest iteration of the Avengers, nearly tore her hair out having to endure Sam and Bucky’s bickering in the beginning. And she threatened to throw an array of things at Steve’s head when he failed to hold back his laughter.)

 _This is it_ , Steve realizes. This is the family Natasha had tried so hard, gave everything, including her soul, to save. When he thought he’d lost her, he could only hope she knew they won, that everything they had and cherished was thanks to her. Now, his newest and only mission other than caring for and loving their son, is to remind her and appreciate her every day.

Once the baseball diamond clears, Steve squats at home plate with Jamie in front of him, both of his tiny yet strong hands gripping each of his dad’s, his little blue rubber boots just touching the ground. Most days Steve can’t believe he’s this fortunate to have all he does and it’s just beginning.

“So this is our life, huh?” Steve whispers to his son who already wants to run before he can even walk. If that isn’t something he got from dad…

“I told you it’d be fun, didn’t I?”

Steve grins just at the sound of her voice. He wraps an arm around Jamie and holds him close as he stands and turns his attention to his wife, his partner, Natasha. His free arm snakes around her waist and pulls her in close. It’s funny. For so long, too long, Steve carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now that he’s finally, finally let go and moved on, his entire world, his new purpose, his pride and joy and legacy fits snug between his two arms.

In a flash, Steve can see it all: his life as Steve Rogers separate from Captain America, as husband, father, uncle, rousing words in difficult times, an impossible dream come true. He sees a life he wouldn’t want to live, couldn’t live anywhere else, in any other reality with anyone else.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://beezyland.tumblr.com/)


End file.
